It's 6:45 a.m. and I really need a cup of coffee. I left the house in a rush, without making any; there'll be plenty of java at headquarters.
"Hi! Here's your marching orders."
"Great, where's the coffee?"
"There's no time for coffee. Get some over at Water Street. They need you there."
"Paul, it's a quarter to seven in the morning."
"Right. The polls've been open for forty five minutes. I've been here for an hour. There're lines around the block. The phones are ringing off the hook. People need rides. Nobody understands the referendum questions. We've got walking groups out and we need drivers bad. Pick up some palm cards and ride sheets and run 'em over to Water Street with you, okay?"
I sigh. "Sure, Paul."
"Good. Here's a sign. Stick it in your back window." I take the sign. It says "Clinton/Gore". I don't tell him that I already have a sign taped to the inside of my back window. It says "Bye Bye, Bush".
So it's going to be one of those elections. America is voting again. I'm overjoyed. But I sure wish I had some coffee. I'm in luck at Water Street. Local 34 has just delivered a huge jug of coffee. I drop off the literature and put a couple of stickers on my jacket. I'm dressed in a turtleneck, flannel shirt and leather jacket over that. I've got my umbrella and my black Rebocks. I'm ready for action.
We head over to 23-B. We start at Rockville Circle, putting literature on doors. It's 7:20 and everybody we've run into says they will vote. Many have already been to the polls. We keep folding and walking, walking and folding and talking. One house has two signs that say "Bad Dog", two signs that say "No Peddlers!", one sign that says "Closed!" and a large black Special Forces flag hung on the front of the house. There's a phone booth in the back yard. I leaflet and move on- quickly.
No dogs yet. A good sign. But there is another volunteer across the street, a bad sign. We compare folders. My companion and I and the lone volunteer huddle together in the streaming rain, with our umbrellas held together like a tent, and check off the duplications. Not too many. We redistribute the ward section between us.
We keep walking. A few waves, some people going to vote, a question on the gun control referendum from a man who exclaims "That just don't make no damn sense!" I go over the wording of it with him, mentally noting that he's right. We press on, and exchange greetings with the mailman. He had the sense to wear a raincoat.
We swing over to Strong Place, it's our last street, and I can't help but admire the name. But another volunteer is already there. Once again we huddle and exchange notes. Both teams are ready to start Strong Place. My companion and I decide to take that street and head back to the outpost at Water Street. The other volunteer, a college student, has forty five minutes to wait for a ride; his other assignments should take about that long. He heads off, complaining insistently about the lack of organization. I'm just glad that we have so many people out. I'm also freezing, and glad for his help.
My companion and I work briskly, and are glad to be back in the car, which is still warm, and the heat comes on quickly. Almost immediately, our glasses fog up and our noses start running.
We head crosstown in what is now just a misty drizzle. We park, clatter downstairs, toward a coffeepot and a bathroom. The coffee is still hot. God Bless Local 34! I check in with the phone rooms and see, to my surprise, that my therapist is manning one of the phones. I suggest that this is "real crisis management", and she throws her head back and laughs. Now I know that she hasn't been getting enough sleep either. It wasn't that funny.
Back to dispatch. A new assignment. Five folders, five volunteers. We distribute palm cards and ride sheets. Matt offers scripts. Nobody needs them anymore. We have the local radio station on. It confirms the heavy turnout that I experienced when I voted this morning, just before my drive over to main headquarters. I comment about it in the car, making small talk with four people I've never seen before. "I've been voting in this town for fourteen years and I've never seen anything like it!" We all agree that it's a very good sign. I flip on the car radio. No word on the exit polls. I park, and we split up.
This time my grid sec (section of the grid) includes a large apartment building. One lady needs a ride for her and her mother, and is grateful that we will provide this service. Another one wants to talk all day about her cat. I'd like to, whatever she's cooking sure smells good. Reluctantly, I move on. Fold and slip, fold and slip, two packets in two mailboxes and on to the next double doorstep. I finish the building, and am amazed at our coordination. We only have to wait for one volunteer and he arrives quickly. Back to Water Street.
There are two boxes of white lunch bags there, donated by some generous soul. I find out just how generous when I open my bag. It contains a huge sandwich, a bag of chips, a bag of assorted cookies and an apple. It's heaven, with a large cup of coffee. My therapist and I eat together, exchange stories and hopeful statistics, and decide to make the next run together. She'll drive. I'm grateful. She checks with her answering service; she has no calls. I check my voice mail and have one message to return. I make a quick call from a noisy room.
Then we head out, to a street near where I used to live. The weather seems to be clearing a bit, but it doesn't last long. The showers are gone, as predicted, but the drizzle is persistent. Now I'm knocking on doors and asking people if they've voted yet. I'm only leaving literature if I get no answer. One man tells me where to go. Two people in the same building, in apartments above each other, share the same reaction. "What? Hey wow, there's an election? I'm not registered." Neither look as if they're in very good shape. I shake my head as I leave, thinking "Now I know why they call it 'getting wasted'."
I press on, and meet my therapist. She finished her streets first and will split this last one with me. She goes to the end of the street, and we work our way towards each other. We head back to the outpost, listening to a local radio station. The informal exit polls look promising.
Back at Water Street, there are two radios going, each tuned to different stations. It will be that way until the polls close. I find that I can easily listen to both at the same time. Volunteers are streaming in and out of a room too small to hold nearly this many people. Somehow, we all fit. We talk about nothing now, but statistics.
I borrow a phone from Rob and check my voice mail again. This will be my last call. No messages. That's good. As I turn from the phone, with the receiver still in my hand, a young student comes bounding in. "We've got Kentucky!", she exclaims. "Kentucky," we say, "that's wonderful!" "And Georgia!" she continues. "Georgia," we repeat, "we've got Georgia? We're going to do it! We've got it!" She's giving it to us slowly, savoring it, letting us absorb it bit by bit. "And Florida's too close to call!" she finishes with triumph. We're jubilant. Clinton had written Florida off. Close is a victory! I cheer with everybody else. Rob just taps me on the shoulder, gently takes the receiver out of my hand, and hangs up the phone with a smile.
I call my rides in to Grove Street, where there is a line of vans waiting to shuttle people to and from the polls. I pick up my next assignment and agree to drive. The scheduling for this one's a little tighter. All my riders are students. One has to get to class, one woman wants to be sure I pick her up before it gets dark, and we all want to cover as much ground as possible. We agree on the logistics. I park and take a section of town very close to my own apartment.
I knock on a door, and fold a packet while I wait for a response. If nobody answers, I leave the literature. If someone comes to the door I have a packet ready for the next house. This time someone answers. He's unshaven, unkempt, and he snarls at me: "I can't vote- I'm a felon!" I back away carefully. There is no doubt in my mind that he is telling the truth.
I complete my run. I haven't covered as much ground as I wanted to, and I mark my map to indicate that. I make my rounds, picking up and delivering the students. Only two of us have completed our assignments. I turn in all the folders, and am told that I'm needed in another precinct.
I drive over to their headquarters. This is my ex wife's neighborhood. I pull an assignment that doesn't include her street. It's dark now. We head out in pairs, trying to get those last few votes. We'll work this way right up to an hour before the polls close.
That works out to three runs. The first is very satisfying. A man is just coming home, and he's already voted. But he is going to take his wife out to the polls and they're not sure that either of them understand the referendum questions. I explain them. We've been getting stories about this all day. The lines are moving slowly because people are taking so much time to read the questions. One of the volunteers is from California. He asserts that they explain the questions much better there. But we all do our best with what we have. There has been plenty of pressure but I haven't heard a harsh word all day. Even though everybody is dog tired and thoroughly soaked.
Back to the precinct. More coffee, a sandwich, a handful of pretzels and a new folder. This time, a man tells my companion that he has voted in the last fifteen elections but he's not voting in this one. "There is somebody," he asserts, "that I very badly don't want to know my address." We all speculate on who that might be. We decide it is probably a wife, an ex wife or the IRS.
We head back to the polls, talking about nothing but statistics. The car radio is on, and we are impatient with the commercials. We want numbers, guesses, exit polls, speculation, commentary, anything. We've stopped our very lives for this day, and we sometimes forget that the rest of the world hasn't done the same.
But the world does move on, and it is finally time for the last run of the day. It's completely uneventful for me. One volunteer has somebody tell him to "Get out of my face with elections!" He backs off. My partner knocks on a door and the lady who answers it tells him that she's had three phone calls asking her if she's voted and he's the third volunteer to knock on her door. He talks with her a while. I keep working and let him talk. He joins me later, and tells me that she was both nice and interesting. I suppose that I would be just as impatient as she, by this time, but Bill says "No. You'd understand. You're a volunteer." The way he says that word makes me walk straighter.
It's an hour before closing time and I'm not ready to quit. We exchange statistics. The exit polls are good, we're already totaling up electoral votes in our heads, but it's all exit polls. No hard numbers.
I head over to Edgewood School to serve on a morale squad until closing. There's a man dressed in a wonderful spotted owl costume. He's one of our crowd. They let him vote like that, but made him take his campaign buttons off. He stands under a streetlight, where people can see him, and passing drivers routinely honk and wave. A small red car screeches to a stop. Out jump two union members- Local 34 again! With a mobile jug of coffee, and a package of Styrofoam cups! I'm too pumped up already, but I take a cup anyway, and gratefully wrap my hands around it for warmth. We exchange cheerful statistics and they screech off with bright smiles and enthusiastic waves. I keep the cup until I can no longer feel its warmth, then throw the coffee in the gutter.
An election official manages to herd everybody in the school by eight o'clock. We stand and count down together. At eight o'clock he locks the doors. The people at the end of the line will not vote until almost eight forty five. But nobody in there will leave.
We can, though; our job is finished. We've done the absolute best we can. I turn to go, just as a man pulls up to our group in a large white Buick and calls out the window "CBS says that Clinton has Connecticut!" Of course we cheer, and he speeds off to spread the good news. We're sure he's right, but we're not as excited as he wants us to be. We want numbers. Everybody heads towards somewhere with a T.V. to get something warm and for some hard numbers.
I drive to the last office I worked out of, that of a state representative. There's a small black and white T.V. and dinner: cold pizza, doughnuts and leftover Halloween candy. It looks wonderful.
Her precocious young son is there, tallying up theoretical electoral votes on a small lined pad, and telling everybody in sight the numbers we all have in our heads. Everybody listens- he's one of us. People filter in slowly. The T.V. blares. Someone brings a radio. We turn it on, and I put to use the skill I learned back at Water Street. It's more difficult now. The room is packed, and I'm listening to the T.V. and the radio, holding a conversation with my old friend Beryl and calling out to the boy that Nebraska is still too close to call. Later, he pulls me aside, and confides that his bed time is nine o'clock, but that he likes to go to bed at eight o'clock. "Do you like to read?" I ask. "No," he replies, "I like to sleep." I think he's on to something.
We listen to the statistics with mounting joy until the champagne is finally broken out and we turn the radio off and the T.V. down so our representative can make a small speech. She thanks us all, and says she's going home to take a hot bath. Every few seconds she glances over at the T.V. screen, then back to us. I'm sure she doesn't know that she's doing it. We're elated. We form a congratulatory line and shake her hand on the way out. Most of the group is headed out to a party. But I have to be up at six thirty tomorrow.
I head to my car, feeling like a real... volunteer. I end up driving around for almost an hour. There is nobody to go home to anymore, and besides- I can't wind down. I don't think I can ever stop driving, but finally I end up back on my own street, and pull into a barely legal parking space. There's a restaurant down the street and I'm sure it's packed. But I don't think I'll be getting any tickets tonight.
I head upstairs to tape my "Bye Bye, Bush" sign to my door. I remove the palm card from the door handle as I fumble my key into the lock. I haven't taken a hot bath in years, and it sure sounds good.
I try to remove the two campaign stickers on my jacket. Only one comes off. I make a mental note: Never Put Stickers On Suede, and postpone the problem until tomorrow.
I start the water and strip down. I hadn't realized just how wet I was until I remove the Ace bandage I'd had on my swollen left ankle. It is now blue from the dye in my sock.
But it doesn't matter. Because I realize, as I slip into the hot water, that I have done something very special today. I've joined a cause. I've been needed- and I responded. There has been a small army of people canvassing this city from before dawn to well past dusk and every single one of them has done an excellent job. Including me. I have gotten much more out of this experience than I gave. I will never again look at an election as just an abstract idea, or a chore to accomplish on my way to work. I've made a difference. I've participated. I've become a volunteer.